Lyse Doucet won the 2026 Women's Prize for Non-Fiction for The Finest Hotel in Kabul, and Virginia Evans won the fiction prize for The Correspondent. Each winner receives £30,000 after the June 11 announcement in London.
The 2026 Women's Prizes were awarded in London on June 11, with Virginia Evans winning the fiction prize for The Correspondent and Lyse Doucet taking the non-fiction award for The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People's History of Afghanistan.
Each winner receives £30,000.
The winners
Evans won the Women's Prize for Fiction for her debut novel, The Correspondent. Doucet, BBC's chief international correspondent, won the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction for her book about Kabul's InterContinental Hotel and Afghanistan's modern history.
The fiction shortlist also included Susan Choi, Addie E. Citchens, Marcia Hutchinson, Rozie Kelly and Lily King. The non-fiction shortlist included Daisy Fancourt, Judith Mackrell, Jane Rogoyska, Arundhati Roy and Ece Temelkuran.
Why judges chose them
The fiction judges, led by former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard, praised Evans' novel for its originality and emotional depth.
The non-fiction judges, led by Thangam Debbonaire, described Doucet's book as immersive reporting and praised it as a meditation on memory, resilience and public space.
Why it matters
The Women's Prize is one of the major annual awards for women writing in English, and the non-fiction prize only launched in 2023 before being first awarded in 2024.
The double result gives immediate visibility to both a debut novel and a work of long-form reporting, with the winners likely to draw renewed attention from readers, booksellers and publishers in the days after the announcement.
Revision note
Initial automated publication.